Adaptation processes

Because people use technology devices, they also adapt to them. In the last hundred years have gotten used to another idea of being witness to each other. When studying these adaptation processes one has to distinct between people who already used similar devices and people who never did at all.

Only then one can find out about what people actually adapt to and what part of a person is adapting. This generates a different insight in these processes than rates can provide. The idea of doing something else while being on the mobile phone that may be a thing that calls for adaptation. You find people on the streets who stop when they receive a call and you have people who keep on walking while having the conversation. That seems to be two kinds of adaptation to the same device. And this is both ways, one can also argue that certain activities of people call for changes in technology.

Adaptation to technology is a major issue because also social systems are designed at the same time. The design of technology defines how people will see each other, how people will witness each other, will be responsible and how people will formulate prejudice. There are different directions of adaptation possible as well as different directions of technology. When focusing on adaptation the question arises how far the design of technology can stretch the human capability to adapt. There is adaptation possible within a certain parameters, argues Parthasarathi. Some people may argue that you can constantly adapt, that there is no threshold there. Where others may argue that you can adapt in this direction up to that point after which you can adapt not in this direction but only in that direction. It s clear that there are physical thresholds of weight, size, sound level, clarity of the screens and so on. When focusing on social or psychological effects of media-use one may ask very different questions like for example what happens to the understanding of the national news when one watches it alone, with a group or with three generations present.

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